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EPA Declares Cleanup Complete at MRS Plating Facility in Lockport, NY

Release Date: 10/08/2008
Contact Information: Mike Basile (716) 551-4410, [email protected]

(New York, N.Y.) In a case that landed a company owner in jail, and resulted in over $1.5 million in cleanup work, including the demolition of several buildings, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has completed its work at MRS Plating Facility in Lockport, New York. It took less than two years for EPA to complete the cleanup of the site, which included removing 17,000 gallons of acid waste; 160 cubic yards of metal-contaminated debris; 1,300 tons of chromium and solvent-contaminated soil; 650 tons of building debris; and 97 drums of plating sludge, laboratory chemicals, waste oil, and acids.

“In this case, EPA’s legal team successfully went after the guilty party at MRS, while our environmental experts dealt with the pollution at the site,” said Alan J. Steinberg. “Not only has justice been served, but the work at MRS Plating Facility has been finished and the site requires no further cleanup work.”

When two releases of liquid chromium-contaminated plating waste occurred in fall 2006 at the former electroplating facility, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation requested EPA’s help. EPA stepped in and secured the facility, and removed all plating waste and debris from tanks and containment areas on-site.

The MRS Plating company and its owner, Ronald Jagiello, both have a history of environmental violations. In 1996, the U.S. District Court imposed fines on MRS Plating after finding the facility was in violation of the Clean Water Act (CWA). Three years later, Mr. Jagiello and his company, pled guilty in U.S. District Court to felony violations of the CWA by admitting to discharging untreated plating waste to the Lockport Wastewater Treatment Facility. As a result, Mr. Jagiello served a year in jail and was forced to pay several fines. On August 9, 2007, Mr. Jagiello pled guilty in the U.S. District Court to criminally disposing of hazardous waste between 2004 and 2006 on site property and was subsequently found guilty of violating criminal provisions of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). This past June, Mr. Jagiello was sentenced to 22 months in jail and ordered to pay $1 million in restitution to EPA.

In May, EPA dismantled the MRS Plating production building and the former MRS office building. In doing so, EPA was able remove concrete flooring and debris from the buildings, as well as the contaminated soil underneath, and dispose of them off-site. EPA restored the site with drainage enhancements, new perimeter fencing, as well as repairs to sidewalks and asphalt areas.

For more information on the MRS Plating Facility and what EPA is doing to clean up this property, visit: http://www.epaosc.net/mrsplating. To read more on EPA’s removal program, go to: https://www.epa.gov/region02/superfund/removal.htm.

For a Google Earth aerial view of the MRS Plating Facility go to: https://www.epa.gov/region02/kml/mrs_plating.kml. (You must have Google Earth installed on your computer to view the map. To download Google Earth, visit http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html)

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